Day two

Saturday, Arissa had to be up bright and early for Parade #2: the North Park Toyland parade.

After that, we dropped M&M off at Nana's:

The 2nd parade, the Chula Vista Starlight parade, didn't start until 6pm, so the team went to lunch first & me and Jesse met them there:

Then they got ready and we headed over to a nearby park to take pictures:

(Jesse was practicing his "skinny face".....I think he's almost got it down; mine still needs some work!)

Since it's Christmastime, the girls added something extra to their uniforms:

... bells on each of their shoes!

It's the cutest thing to see them dancing down the street, and to hear all the jingle bells.

BUT watch out when the day is over....the girls go around and hug each parent and thank them for coming and for their support, and the sound of 13 little girls running towards you w/ bells on their shoes can be a little scary if you aren't expecting it!

I like this next picture...I think it's sweet that Jesse is such a "Drill Team Dad". He carts Arissa and those girls around wherever they need to go...he goes to every single parade....he is friendly w/ the girls just like all the moms....he even helps out w/ the girls like all the moms, HE is the one who put all those bells on their shoes!

The only thing he doesn't do is those Drill Team curls....but I'm workin' on it. :o)

He helped Arissa w/ her hairnet or some part of her uniform:

So like I said, after lunch the team heads over to the nearby park for pictures.

I took 283 pictures.

My favorites are the ones I get right before/after the "one..two...three....smile!". The real smiles and messing around that shows these sweet girls' characters.

She here's one of the "one...two...three....smile!" ones:

It's cute, no doubt.

But here's the real "Arissa & friends", the ones I want to remember:

Why is that sweet kid on the right strangling Nikki, you might ask. Everytime the girls are told to do a "silly pose", for some reason they all pretend to strangle eachother. It never ceases to make us parents laugh...why do our kids all equate "silly" with asphyxiation? :O)

More from the photo shoot:

After the photoshoot, now with 3 hours to spare before the parade began, the girls walked up and down the parade route to do some fundraising, selling See's Candy Bars.

No one was safe from their selling tactics....not even (and especially not) us parents.

I bought 3 candy bars, but the girls still solicited Jesse. He really made them work for the money, too. He kept feigning ignorance and asking questions about the team, why they needed money, what were the candy bars made of, are they healthy for him, etc. Then he tried to bargain with them to lower the price or to take a trade. Finally a man standing nearby offered to buy the candy bar for Jesse because he felt sorry for him (for being so poor) and for the girls (for having to deal w/ this seemingly picky, poor man)! It was hilarious.

And two hours later, the parade began. The girls went to get in their places and get ready, us mom's sat down and talked and waited, and the husbands went (where else?) to the bar across the street. :o) We sat out there for 2 whole hours, as the space around us slowly filled up. It filled up so much that you could not walk thru the crowd. It was insane. We sat there and shivered for hours, then after 5 minutes of the parade the girls came and went and we were done. :o)

Well Jesse, Arissa, and I weren't done....we had to rush from the parade to the Civic Center downtown for our long-awaited (we bought the tickets in September) Jerry Seinfeld concert:

yes, Arissa came with us. We weren't sure if we should buy her a ticket or not (they weren't cheap!) but she loves watching Seinfeld as much as we do, and having seen him before we knew that his humor wasn't anything that would be inappropriate for her to hear. So we took a chance.

She was tired as all getout, but she had a great time. Just being in the huge theatre and seeing all the people dressed up sipping their $12 glasses of champagne made her feel very grown up and special. Plus she was one of only 2 kids in the entire place! She leaned on me during the performance and a few times I wondered if she was awake, but then I'd see her smile and giggle at the jokes. :o) Of course Jesse and I laughed the whole 2 hours...it was an awesome show and I'm so glad we were able to go!